January 4, 2012
Reading this morning about Rick Santorum’s success in the Iowa caucus vote made me wonder whether someone slipped LSD into my coffee. How else to explain a presidential candidate of a major political party doing so well while opposing birth control and advocating that states can make it illegal. Santorum is essentially saying that a man and premenopausal woman should only have sex if they’re willing for the result to be birth of a baby. He’s also saying that it’s all right for government — albeit not the federal government — to play such a life- and society-altering role in our private lives.
Let’s say Santorum gets his way. We as a nation would have many more children when we can least afford them, a lot less sex, and state governments empowered to regulate one of the most intimate aspects of our existence. That would make reality worse than a bad acid trip. And here I thought Republicans wanted government out of our lives.
Rarely do I find commentary as incisive and articulate as that of Scott Horton. His “No Comment” blog for Harper’s Magazine illuminates current affairs not with polemics but cohesive facts and analysis. Reading his work I see the fog of he-said-she-said media coverage lift to reveal what looks like truth. Read More
This homemade Obama sign in a yard not far from my house seems more appropriate now than during the campaign. Without the new president’s leadership, the economy would indeed end up busted.
Like anyone, I don’t like the prospect of Himalaya-like deficits. But nearly every economist whom I’ve seen quoted says the only way to jump start the economy is through extraordinary government spending. Otherwise, the deficits will seem mild compared to the fiscal ruin we’d face. Read More
U.S. Senate Republicans made quite a spectacle in 2005, trying unsuccessfully to prevent comatose Terri Shiavo from getting unplugged from life support. Their rallying cry: celebrate the culture of life. Now they’ve blocked efforts to help automakers stave off financial collapse, potentially costing hundreds of thousands of people their jobs.
In other words, the GOP fought to keep alive a woman in a “persistent vegetative state” and blocked saving the livelihoods of families across the country.
Increasingly, the Republican Party looks brain dead.
